Laura Xiao on Balancing Family and Business with Giving Back

Becoming a parent changes the dynamic for female entrepreneurs who thought of their business as their baby. Now, balancing a thriving business with family becomes like walking a tightrope while juggling - challenging to say the least. Add the noble pursuit of giving back to the mix, and you've got a recipe for overwhelm. For Laura Xiao, these seemingly conflicting demands are managed with grace. She proves that with the right strategies, integrating family, business, and philanthropy is not only possible but deeply rewarding. Ready to unravel the secret to her balancing act? Tune in. Show Notes | Transcript "I want my kids to be proud of me and to see the type of people we are, the way we treat others, the way we run our business and also the way we give back in our community." - Laura Xiao Laura Xiao, the founder and CEO of Henne Organics, joins us for an inspiring discussion about the thrills and challenges of starting a luxury skin care company, while balancing personal relationships when your business partner is also your life partner. Laura opens up about her experiences as a business owner and a new parent, the delicate act of juggling family life with professional ambitions, and how shared business ventures can harmonize work-life integration, particularly when children enter the picture. We also shine a light on the importance of community contribution, as Laura recounts her efforts to partner with local charities like First Fruit, illuminating the pervasive issue of human trafficking and the role each of us can play in supporting such causes. In this episode, you'll discover: How Laura's leap of faith into the beauty industry led to the birth of a brand with soul and success. The complexities of advice in the beauty industry vs. trusting one's intution The dance of partnership in both marriage and business, and how personal relationships can blossom in a professional setting. The joy and challenges of parenting while steering the entrepreneurial ship, and how we can be role models for our children. The profound impact of supporting local charities, like First Fruit, in their fight against human trafficking, and how we can all contribute to such critical causes. How Laura challenged her immigrant family's expectations through entrepreneurship. Resources: Join the Soulful Women's Network Connect with Laura Xiao: Website: HenneOrganics.com Instagram: @henneorganics Connect with Live Love Engage: Send Gloria Grace a message ☕ Support the podcast ❤ Love this episode? Leave us a review and rating LinkedIn: Gloria Grace Rand Facebook: Gloria Grace Rand YouTube: Gloria Grace Rand Related Live. Love. Engage. episodes you may enjoy: Harmony at Home: Aimee Greczmiel’s Self-Care Tips for Busy Parents Transform What You Love Into a Scalable Business with Nathalie Doremieux How to Create a Soul-Aligned Luxury Brand with Elva Li TRANSCRIPT Gloria "Grace" Rand Namaste. You know, growing a business is no easy task, so if you would like some advice from a successful entrepreneur, you are in the right place, because today we are going to be talking with Laura Xiao, who is the founder and CEO of Henne Organics, a luxury beauty brand that combines natural and highly effective lip and skincare formulas with exquisite Nordic design. But before I bring her in, I just want to welcome you to the podcast and, if this is your first time here, I am Gloria Grace. I support women business owners and strengthening their spiritual connections so you can create a life and business that's both prosperous and deeply gratified. But I am really excited. We were having a little chat before we got on the air here today, but I'm really excited to talk about Laura because I know she's got a great story to tell about her unique entrepreneurial journey. I think everybody has their own unique journey, but there's also some common threads in there that I think that we can learn from. So, without further ado, I'm going to bring her up right now. There she is and welcome Laura to Live love Engage. Laura Xiao Hi, thank you for having me. Happy Wednesday. I know we were joking before we went live that I don't know what the date of the week is sometimes when I have been a toddler, but today I did know that it was Wednesday, absolutely. Gloria "Grace" Rand Yeah, I know you're live on social media, but, of course, if you're listening to this now on your favorite podcast platform, it's probably Tuesday, because that's when it goes out. See, you never know what date is. It's all good. So I was mentioning that I always like to start our podcast with gambling a little bit into the background of our guests and finding out their journey. So I knew that you've got a good story to tell about. Oh, my goodness, my light just fell over. Well, I'm going to go ahead and let you share, and then I'll do it while I'm on you. So, yeah, tell us a little bit about your story and how you got to become a founder of a skincare product. Laura Xiao Well, it's definitely a little bit of an unconventional background story, I guess. I'd like to say I don't originally come from the beauty industry actually far from it but it was kind of a combination, I always say a little bit of inspiration and desperation. So my husband, who is Swedish initially, I actually moved to Sweden to be with him after I finished college and I think just moving there initially, kind of the wheel started turning because at that time I had just recently become a lot more interested and I discovered a lot more about just ingredients, everything from the food that I was eating to the ingredients and the products I was using. So it was something that I would have already started becoming very passionate about. And then this is back in 2010. And when we moved to Sweden, I noticed even in Sweden at that time they just had more natural options than we did back in the States. And I was very young at the time, I was in my early 20s, and of course I started thinking, oh, wouldn't it be great if I could launch my own products? And it was a great idea, but definitely seemed like a bit of a pipe dream at that time. I didn't have the money, the credentials, the experience, whatever you want to call it didn't have any of that, so kind of put on the back burner and I thought, maybe in a couple of decades, when I burned my stripes, when I saved up enough money, this is something I could do. And then fast forward a handful of years later. We had been living in a few other places, a few other countries, kind of bounced around for a little bit, and then, when we moved back to the States, I actually developed pretty serious issues with my lips. My husband did as well. We were living in Nevada at the time, in Vegas, and that was when the desperation kind of came in and I thought, okay, I still don't have the beauty experience, I don't have the connections, but I have a little bit of money saved now, and I think this is something I'd really like to do, because I created a lip balm in our kitchen that worked really well for us and so already had the formula, and that's kind of what really got things going. I guess having struggling with dry lips kind of gave me the kick in the buck. I needed to really give it a go. Yeah, so we launched Hena in 2015, initially just with the lip balm, and here we are today. Gloria "Grace" Rand Wow, that's amazing. So it's been a very short time for you to be doing that, but quite the journey to be able to get there as well. What was very particular challenges that you found in getting the business off the ground once you decided, okay, yes, I'm going to do this, we're going to launch with this lip balm, but did you have any particular things that, looking back at, like I really wish we had a better way to be able to fix it or not? I don't know. Laura Xiao I think one thing I would say is I think in the beginning, because I had so little experience, I was getting feedback from a wide range of people in my life, and so people from just there are some people in the tech space, because we were in that. I was working in that space prior to launching Henne and everybody was well-meaning and some of the feedback was actually really, really helpful. But I think almost getting too much was a little bit confusing at times for me because, for example, after a few months after we launched Henne, I managed to contact a few people in the industry and try to get feedback from them, and I think it didn't take me in the wrong direction. But I think I tried to do things their way, a little bit more their way, because I thought that's how the industry works and I kind of realized pretty quickly that there is truly no one-size-fits-all and I actually think being a little bit whether you want to call it naive or inexperienced was actually an advantage that I had and I kind of ended up going back to that instead of just trying to follow this very, very rigid path but to follow a path that someone else had taken. I know it's a little bit of a vague description, but I'll use an example. I was going to ask you. That's a very vague, very vague example. I said no connections but having my I guess my natural personality type of being very much of a go-getter, very type A and just yeah, I guess that personality type, I started contacting stores to see if they would be interested in bringing us in and I think the like I said whether you want to call it being naive kind of helped, because I contacted some stores that apparently are very exclusive and very difficult to get into and most brands wouldn't dare try in the beginning. And I didn't contact them in a presumptuous or rude way by any means. I was very friendly, very polite, but I was. I still dared to ask right, would you be interested, could I send you samples? And because of that we got into a few key stores very early on,...